I’d needed a quick detour to the bathroom to rub one out before meeting Rafaelle. And I had a feeling I would need to do it again before the night was?—
‘At any other time I’d leave you to daydream about Hot Ti—’ Rafa barely managed to stop himself from stepping on that landmine, but his unrepentant grin dared me to kick his ass for the misstep. ‘I mean Maddelena.’
A growl built in my chest anyway. And fuck me if it wasn’t absurd how territorial I was getting about the woman who I freely admitted now was embedded deep beneath my skin.
Cristu, how truly fucked was I if I couldn’t stomach hearing her name from another man’s lips, even if that man was my own brother.
‘But I need you to get your head in the game. These Azerbaijani motherfuckers are twitchy as fuck. Dying in a worthy battle is one thing. Being taken out for the simple reason of being distracted will greatly shame me,frate. So much so I might not attend your funeral. So do me a solid,sì?’
Spoken in jest but I knew he was deadly serious about every word.
I slapped his shoulder and nodded. ‘My head’s in the game.’ Then I repeated it once more to myself.
The man we were going to meet was relatively medium fry in our operation. But a fifteen-million-dollar deal was still nothing to be sniffed at. It was a trickle that contributed to the steady stream that turned the wheels of the Salvatore empire, which was what Orazio had told me, with several swings of his fist, when I’d dared to question how much money was enough as a know-it-all twenty-year-old.
The lesson hadn’t ended there.
I’d been sent to the sleaziest strip club we owned somewhere in the armpit of Jersey City. Made to work alongside the janitor three hours every night for a month, cleaning overflowing toilets and floors sticky with fluids I was too repulsed to investigate, then handing over the pittance I’d made to Orazio. He’d gleefully hand it over to his accountant to be added to the heaving Salvatore coffers. To this day I knew to the exact number what my contribution had added to my family’s wealth.
Two hundred and seventy-nine dollars, six cents, after taxes.
For a month’s work.
It was a lesson well-learnt that the accumulation of wealth was the number one goal of the Salvatores. I’d been somewhat heartened to learn though that there weresomelines Orazio wouldn’t cross when it came to making money – the buying and selling of children. Most everything else was up for grabs.
I blocked Maddelena from my mind as we arrived at our destination in Sumqayit.
The isolated collection of warehouses bordered the banks of the Caspian Sea. Leather-clad soldiers dotted the front of each warehouse, their numbers growing as we rolled towards the largest warehouse in the middle of the surrounding structures.
Its doors were thrown open, a line of men spread out at six-feet intervals.
Fist parked and glanced around, then nodded for us to alight.
The man we were here to meet, a short, stocky guy wearing gaudy rings named Yalcin Kamirov, stood in the middle, watching us with beady eyes as his men patted mine down and relieved them of their sidearms.
Rafaelle bared his teeth at the man who approached him, letting loose his unhinged grin until the man hesitantly stepped back.
Then my brother made a show of unholstering his gun and handing it over. Everyone present suspected – and I knew – he had another one secreted somewhere on his body, but they didn’t dare to push him further.
Kamirov had more at stake in this deal than we did, although I suspected he would attempt to strong-arm me as part of some old-school gangster shitshow he had to perform.
He started by waving imperiously at one of his minions once we were seated in a damp-smelling office inside the warehouse, him behind an obscenely large desk with his chair jacked all the way up so he was eye-level with me.
A tray of premium Russian vodka and three shot glasses were placed before him.
He poured then snapped his fingers. ‘Come, let’s drink to new partnership!’
I shook my head. ‘Not for me, thanks.’ Expecting the usual suspicion and paranoia that came naturally to people in our shady line of business, I pre-empted the encroaching bullshit with, ‘I never drink during race week.’ Clearly a lie since I’d indulged in my favourite cognac only an hour ago. But also because I loathed the taste of vodka, even the premium label he’d clearly shelled out for to impress me.
I much preferred top-level Scotch like MacCallan. Or the excellentvinu russuproduced on the Salvatore vineyard we owned in Northern Sicily. A place I hadn’t visited in far too long.
Rafa drank his shot.
A layer of violence receded from the space and Yalcin nodded enthusiastically, distracted by a shiny new subject. ‘Ah, yes!’ He tossed back his shot, poured another, then pointed a fat finger at me. ‘I watch your races. That is interesting business model, no? A racer and gangster? I wish I had your talent, but even if I did’ – he laughed and slapped both ring-strewn hands over his heaving belly, then laughed harder as it jiggled beneath his offensively cheap polyester shirt – ‘I cry if I have to give up my nene’sdjiz biz, yes?’
‘That’s probably wise,’ Rafa agreed with a grin. ‘You find your lane, you stick to it, I say. Saves slashed throats and broken bones.’
Confusion shortened Yalcin’s raucous laughter as he tried to work out if Rafa had just insulted or threatened him. Behind him, his men twitched, equally confused.
